SACE Stage 2 Modern History flashcards
SACE Stage 2 Modern History · Build recall with a focused review session.
32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.
- SACE Stage 2 weighting
- School assessment contributes 70% and external assessment 30% of the final grade in Stage 2 Modern History.
- Folio weighting
- The folio of skills tasks is worth 35% of the total subject grade, equal in value to the individual historical study.
- Individual historical study
- A research task worth 35% of the grade, requiring a research question, plan, and final product of up to 2000 words with annotated sources.
- Source origin
- The origin of a source covers who produced it, when, where, and in what form, and is the starting point for any evaluation.
- Source purpose
- Purpose is the reason a source was created, such as to persuade, record, justify, or entertain, and shapes how its content should be read.
- Reliability versus usefulness
- Reliability concerns trustworthiness of content; usefulness concerns value as evidence for a specific inquiry. A biased source may be unreliable yet useful.
- Historical perspective
- Perspective refers to the values, beliefs and circumstances of a source's creator, which explain why the source presents events as it does.
- Continuity and change
- A skill requiring explanation of what persisted and what altered across a period, with evidence for the pace and extent of change.
- Arguable hypothesis
- A hypothesis must be contestable and supportable by evidence; a question settled by a single uncontested fact is not suitable for research.
- Annotated source list
- A list of up to ten sources, each with a brief note explaining its content, origin and relevance to the research question.
- Performance standards A to E
- Grades are reported A to E; top-band work shows sustained evaluation of sources and a reasoned, evidence-based argument rather than description.
- Citation requirement
- All sources used in the historical study must be consistently cited with author, title, date and place of publication.
- Research question scope
- A workable research question is narrow enough to answer within the word limit and broad enough to require analysis rather than recall.
- Primary source
- A source produced during or by participants in the period studied, such as letters, speeches, photographs, diaries or official records.
- Secondary source
- A source created after the period by someone interpreting it, such as a history text, documentary or scholarly article.
- Corroboration
- Corroboration is confirming a claim by comparing independent sources; agreement across sources with different origins strengthens confidence in the claim.
- Examination length
- The external examination is three hours long and is completed under supervised conditions, contributing 30% of the final grade.
- Examination sections
- The examination contains a sources analysis section and an essay section; both must be attempted because marks come from each.
- Sources analysis progression
- Source questions typically move from comprehension, to inference, to evaluation of usefulness and reliability, requiring increasingly evaluative responses.
- Essay evidence requirement
- Essays must draw on evidence from at least two historical periods or contexts studied in the course to demonstrate breadth.
- Essay mark criteria
- Essay marks reward argument, use of evidence, evaluation of interpretations or sources, and structure; narrative recount earns limited credit.
- Targeted usefulness judgment
- Usefulness is judged against the specific question asked, weighing provenance and limitations rather than offering a general verdict on reliability.
- Time allocation
- A practical convention is roughly one-third of examination time on source analysis and two-thirds on the essay, with brief planning before writing.
- Attribution of evidence
- Quotations and statistics used as evidence must be attributed to their source; unattributed factual claims are treated as unsupported in marking.
- Inference from source
- An inference is a conclusion drawn beyond the literal content of a source, supported by evidence within the source and its context.
- Provenance
- Provenance is the record of a source's origins and custody, used to assess whether its creator was positioned to know or to persuade.
- Tone and emphasis
- Tone and emphasis are analytical features of a source, revealing the producer's attitude through word choice, omission and prominence given to details.
- Silence in a source
- What a source omits can be significant evidence; silences may reveal the limits of the producer's knowledge or deliberate exclusion.
- Historiographical interpretation
- An interpretation is a historian's explanation of events; evaluating differing interpretations requires comparing their evidence and assumptions.
- Thesis statement
- A thesis statement is a single clear claim answering the essay question, which the body paragraphs support with evidence and reasoning.
- Paragraph structure
- An effective body paragraph states a claim, presents evidence, explains how the evidence supports the claim, and links to the essay question.
- Conclusion function
- A conclusion restates the argument in light of the evidence presented, without introducing new evidence or unqualified claims.